Cheerleader Ninjas
Hamster Films
96 Minutes
Rated R
Distributed by Trimark/Lions' Gate Entertainment
Written and Directed by Kevin Campbell
http://www.cheerleaderninjas.com/

Take a bunch of Star Trek geeks, a cheerleader squad, a group of evil Catholic school girls, some giant robots, an endangered bear and an evil church lady and you've got yourself Cheerleader Ninjas.

Yes, Cheerleader Ninjas. You read that correctly.

Opening my copy of this DVD, I must admit I had certain expectations. Namely, I expected to see ninjas. And, alas, there were none; at least, there were none of the black-garbed, shuriken-throwing Asian masters of death that you might expect. But I also expected to be disappointed, and that expectation was also dashed. For what it's worth, this is a funny, well-thought out film. It's no Casablanca, but for a film called Cheerleader Ninjas, it certainly delivers 96 minutes of enjoyment. As B movies go, this is a solid B-plus.

As the title suggests, our ninjas here are also cheerleaders, and having to choose between cheerleaders dressed like ninjas (not at all sexy), or ninjas dressed like cheerleaders (possibly dangerous), the director wisely chose the third route and stocked his film with cheerleaders who are masters of the Art of the Ninja.

OK, maybe "masters" is pushing it.

Being stereotypical cheerleaders, these gals aren't good at much, even if they do manage to save the day in the end. But the film goes to great lengths to lay such stereotypes out for all the world to see, so it's not surprising that about all our heroines are good at is flashing their panties.

Every stereotype introduced in the film is milked for all it's worth: evil Catholic reform-school girls with switchblades; misguided Church-lady types intent on cleaning up the Internet; Star Trek-geeks who do nothing but talk Trek and surf porn; an incredibly flaming homosexual cheerleader-squad reject; and of course, the aforementioned cheerleaders, who, aside from picking up some martial arts training over a few hours, are pretty much your standard airheaded beauties (with one exception, revealed at the end of the film).

The reason the film works is that it's well aware of what it's doing. For example, faced with a tense fight scene, the film simply swaps in a rubber sex doll when one of the schoolgirls is about to get her face punched in. Cut to the chase scene and... it turns out it takes place on pogo sticks. There are no illusions of big-budget stunts and fight scenes. The script also takes shots at all of the above, with little jabs at Japanese Anime, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, computer hacker thrillers (why don't they ever just pull the plug out?) and much more. And it's also got Cable-TV star Kira Reed in a special appearance as a "Fantasy Girl" if you're into that sort of thing. Which you probably are.

This is not a film for kids, even if much of the humor is at the low-brow, fart-joke, Teenage Mutant Ninja Cheerleaders level. There's girls in lingerie, graphic jokes about masturbation, and enough female nudity throughout to please Benny Hill (RIP). It's much more appropriate to toss in the DVD player at, say, a beer blast, frat party or any other situation involving alcoholic beverages.

The film features a plot about an evil mastermind trying to take over the world, but this isn't the sort of film where you worry about the plot. But it also features Catholic school girls fighting cheerleaders. Which do you care more about?

I thought so.

There may not be black-suited ninja masters of death, but there are cheerleaders wielding katanas and nunchaku, kicking schoolgirl butt, and as B-movie ninja comedies go, I'd have to rate this as my favorite.

From Infinity to the Mall!